Is there a female character who is primarily defined by her emotional or biological relationship with a child or children? [why this matters]

WILDCARD SCORE:0

Is there anything either positive or negative in the film’s representation of women not already accounted for here? (points will vary)

No.

TOTAL SCORE:+1

IS THE FILM’S DIRECTOR FEMALE? No (does not impact scoring)

IS THE FILM’S SCREENWRITER FEMALE? No (does not impact scoring)

BOTTOM LINE: Explorations of the particular pressures that teenage girls are under are definitely needed, and we get that here. But we also get a lot of clichés that reduce girls to not much beyond how they look and what they wear, and a standard deployment of a mean-girl villain.

NOTE: This is not a “review” of The DUFF! It is simply an examination of how well or how poorly it represents women. (A movie that represents women well can still be a terrible film; a movie that represents women poorly can still be a great film.) Read my review of The DUFF.